Category Archives: Mariners

by | July 23, 2012 · 11:32 pm

Thank You, Ichiro

Matthew just wrote a post about Ichiro below this.  It’s based more on facts and what it means for both sides.  This post is more of the emotional aspect and I just wanted to write a few words about the legend.

For the last month I’d been planning to write a post about Ichiro Suzuki.  I’ve been a defender of his this past year and I had grown frustrated with the media constantly bashing him while overlooking other faults in the organization.  Every time I tried to write the post though, I couldn’t get it out.  The truth is, Ichiro just has been very good in the last couple of years and I couldn’t write a strong enough piece to totally defend him.  I guess, more than anything it bothered me how Ichiro was treated.

I’ve never been one to truly care about how much a player talks to the media.  I didn’t like it when Chone Figgins repeatedly said, “Next question.” but that’s just because I don’t like Figgins.  Unfortunately, the media doesn’t like it when players don’t speak to them and where do fans get most of their information?  The media.  With that in mind, I think number 51’s career was tarnished a little bit.  Ichiro Suzuki was one of the Mariners most productive hitters this season.  He wasn’t good, in fact, he was bad, but there truly weren’t many better guys.  Yet, talk shows spent hour after hour debating his spot in the batting order.  National media members (Jon Heyman) tweet about the Mariners once a month and it’s usually to bash Ichiro.

For some reason, Ichiro has gotten the label of being a ‘selfish’ baseball player.  This stemmed from him not interacting with people and always hitting singles.  Think about how ridiculous this notion is now that he’s not here.  You had 2,533 hits for our organization and you are selfish.  What?  Former players didn’t understand Ichiro and then bashed him, because of that, after they’d left town.

Over the course of this year, there have been many things said about Ichiro that shouldn’t have been said.  Jay Buhner said recently said he would have vomited if Ichiro was signed to a good-sized extension.  We all understood the sentiment, but don’t you think he could have made it sound better?  A Mariner legend, who will never sniff the hall of fame, just insulted a future hall-of-famer, who played in Seattle longer than he did, in front of the whole city.  No one would have done this to Jr. in his last season even though he was producing at a much lower rate.

I think, over the past year, we’ve diminished the player Ichiro was.  He’s been the face of Japanese baseball and will continue to be long after he retires.  I ask you to forget all things that were said this past year about Ichiro.  He’s not selfish, he’s from another culture and just came here to play baseball the way that he knew how.  He was great at it.  He’ll be the 2nd player inducted into the Hall as a Mariner, right after Griffey, and he should be treated like that.  He’s a legend and we won’t see anyone else do what he did, ever.  2,533 hits in 11 and a half seasons.  Read that sentence again.

Remember Ichiro for his laser throw to gun down Terrance long.  Remember Ichiro for the day he broke Sisler’s hit record.  Remember him for the player he was as a Mariner, not the picture some of the media painted him as.

I’ve always hated the Yankees.  I’m like most people.  Now, I will root like crazy for them to win the World Series.  Ichiro truly deserves that.

I’m sorry if you ever felt under-appreciated here, Ichiro.  I hope you know that you are loved in this city and you’re a legend.  Go hit .320, win a ring, wear it to spring training and punch Jon Heyman in the face with it on.

Andrew

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by | July 23, 2012 · 8:44 pm

Goodbye Ichiro

In case you somehow missed it, Ichiro was traded to the Yankees today.  In a kind of sad, kind of cool twist, the Yankees are in town, so Ichiro was still in right field at Safeco tonight, but he was wearing pinstripes instead of northwest green.

It’s long been said that the only way Ichiro would be traded is if he requested it, and that proved to be the case.  Several weeks ago, Ichiro approached management and asked them to consider trading him.  He said he realized that the club was getting younger and he is getting older, and that he didn’t feel he has a place on the club for next year.  While he didn’t specifically mention it that I noticed, I’m sure that he also wants to play for a winner in the twilight years of his career.

It’s hard to know how to feel about this.  One of the characteristics that distinguishes humans from other animals is the ability to hold competing ideas simultaneously, and I think that is necessary here.  Ichiro leaving is sad, but it’s not necessarily anything to get mad about.

Ichiro has been my favorite Mariner pretty much since he got here.  He was just so cool and so stylish.  When he was going good he fit the city perfectly: a little aloof, metropolitan, did things his own way.  He modeled for a fashion spread in GQ and made legendary pregame speeches for the all-star game.

He was also the last tie to when the Mariners were good.  Anyone who was around in 2001 will never forget the way he took the league by storm.  He changed every game and was the talk of baseball.  He made the Mariners relevant and exciting.  I think at least part of the sadness of Ichiro leaving comes from the loss of what little identity the Mariners had left.  As long as they had Ichiro, they had something.  Now they’ve lost even that, and there’s no guarantee anyone will fill that hole anytime soon.

There are a few what I would call misconceptions I’ve seen floating around.  The first is that this is a trade made to help the Mariners.  I guess in a way it is, and I’ll talk about that in a minute.  This trade didn’t bring in great prospects or anything, though.  They got two pitching prospects who might someday be major league middle relievers.  That leads to the second misconception.  Trading Ichiro, even for a weak return, is not a failure by the Mariners management.  The only reason he was traded was because he requested it, and he had no trade value due to his play and contract.  This is completely a move made to take care of and reward Ichiro, and for that the Mariners deserve credit, even if it sucks to see him in a different uniform.  In most ways, this trade wasn’t about baseball, and that’s okay.

Bringing Ichiro back next year would have been a mistake.  It was simply time to move on.  No one expected him moving on would happen in this fashion, but it does prevent a potential headache this offseason if Ichiro had wanted to come back.  I was one of those who always thought he’d find a way to play well into his 40s, so his sudden decline is surprising and disappointing.  It’s time for the Mariners to build a winning team, and there was really no way Ichiro could have been part of it.

We’ll all miss you, Ichiro.  Even the last two years, you still had those moments where you did something amazing and brought us to our feet.  Thank you for so many great memories and for making the last ten years of Mariners baseball slightly less painful.  I wish you could have seen the playoffs in Seattle this season, but I’m happy for you that you’ll at least see them in New York.  You will always be a Seattle legend.

-Matthew

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by | July 23, 2012 · 11:56 am

The Mariners Are Good At Some Things

The Mariners are, and have been, terrible.  Maybe they’ll turn the corner soon, but it sure feels like they’re just going to continue losing 90 games a year until the end of eternity.

Let’s give them some credit, though.  For as bad as they are on the field, they do many things right otherwise.  Take, for instance, this story about their response to a young boy who wrote asking if they could help him out with a birthday/Father’s Day present for his dad.  Just go read it.  It’s a great story, and the kid is automatically in the running for Son of the Year.

The Mariners are really good at stuff like this.  They work hard to give fans a great experience and to contribute to the community.  Maybe that’s the norm with all sports teams, I don’t know, but it doesn’t have to be.  Much has been made about the value of a sports team to a community, especially around here with the loss of the Sonics.  Quantifying monetary and economic value is tough, but it’s hard to argue that the Mariners and other teams are anything less than tremendously valuable in countless other ways.

Like many fans, I get tired of the Mariners seemingly putting so much emphasis on the gameday experience while delivering such terrible teams.  I would not be at all sad if this ownership group sold the team tomorrow.  Still, don’t make the mistake of thinking that a great experience and a focus on contributing to the community is bad or detrimental to the actual baseball.  The off the field things are great.

If only the Mariners would realize that a winning team is the biggest part of a great gameday experience.  Then we’d have the best of both worlds.  Thank you, Mariners, for the many things you do.  Now, if you could add winning to the list, it would be much appreciated.

-Matthew

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by | July 11, 2012 · 8:12 pm

The Mariners of the Future: Third Base

I’ll dispense with the lengthy preamble for this one.  Like every other position for the Mariners, third base has good options, questions, and lots of guys with something to prove.  Not sure when I’ll get to the outfielders or how I’m going to tackle that many guys, so you might have to wait a bit for that.  Plus, I’m heading on a long vacation in a couple of days.  Sorry.  Maybe the Mariners will make a trade and clear things up for me in the meantime.

The Rundown

Think of Kyle Seager‘s pro career up to this point as a reverse on the football field.  Unexpected, exciting.  Everyone’s paying attention now, where a few seconds ago the game was a bit on the boring side.  He’s just turned past the line of scrimmage, so that danger of being caught in the backfield for a big loss is avoided, but now he has to make that defensive end who held his gap miss, or else it was just a pretty three yard run.  Seager was a bit unexpected as a third round pick in 2009.  He was the second baseman on Ackley’s UNC team, and most thought that Ackley would move to the outfield in the pros and Seager would stay at second.  Instead, Ackley moved to second, and eventually, Seager to third.

Seager’s hit more than anyone expected.  Early on, he was termed Ackley-lite, but that doesn’t seem so accurate now.  He has surprising power without quite having the eye that Ackley was supposed to have.  He started 2012 on a tear, and despite tapering off some, he’s still been one of probably the three best position players for the Mariners this year.  Right now, he’s an average or slightly wose hitter and a good defender who should only improve.  The player he is now is valuable.  The Mariners could do and have done much worse at third base (see below).  The question now is whether Seager can make that defensive end miss and go for a big gain.  To be a star, he needs to make adjustments and become a constant power threat.  He’s not likely to ever be a huge power hitter, but home runs in the 20s with 40 doubles and a .340 OBP is realistic and would make him one of the best third basemen in the league. Continue reading →

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by | July 11, 2012 · 12:14 pm

The Most Important Reason to NOT Trade Felix Hernandez

A decent argument can, and has been made (almost weekly) for trading Felix Hernandez. I think we’ve all heard the basic elements of the discussion, but let’s review.

Trade Felix:
Felix is the most valuable chip the M’s have, and the likelihood of competing for a World Series before his contract expires after 2014 looks bleak (thanks to Tex and LAA). The national assumption is Felix will land in a big market the next time he hits free agency, because one can only handle so much rain, lack of offense, and of course, losing. And oh by the way, the Mariners offense is not so hot if you’ve tuned in this past decade, and there aren’t many top tier bats in the pipeline to change this. Speaking of top tier prospects, the M’s do have them, but they are pitchers. This side says trade your best asset to acquire offense (Pineda for Montero part 2), rather than stay this depressing course.

Do Not Trade Felix:
The argument I hear for not trading Felix mainly comes, naturally, from Mariner fans. This side says to be successful, you need an ace, which Felix is, and trading him for 1-2 MLB ready players plus a handful of prospects is not equal value. Furthermore, re-signing Felix may not be impossible based on his steadfast comments about the city and organization, and his desire to be a Mariner. Check out his comments from just two days ago:

“I’ve got two more years to go on my contract,” said Hernandez. “It’s not my decision. But I would love to stay. I love Seattle. I love the organization, and the city. I would be disappointed [to be traded],” Hernandez added. “I don’t think they will do that. I love them. And I think they like me, too.”

Lastly, what’s the rush to trade him now? Whether Seattle can contend before 2015 remains to be seen, but if two years from now the team is still struggling, and a trade must be made, Felix will still demand a nice package in return.

If you just consider the main points of each side, from 30,000 feet trading Felix looks logical, and inevitable. The trade Felix side has a compelling case. But let’s land this plane in Seattle, and dissect the lesser discussed, but most important reason the M’s should not trade Felix Hernandez: The Mariners needs an ace, yes, but more importantly, they need a face.

As a long suffering Seattle sports fan, I (and the other Good Guys) have insight and a pulse of the sports community that national writers and transplant Seattleites just don’t have. This town has seen too much losing, both in the record column, and in seeing it’s homegrown stars depart at the peak of their career. This list is long, headlined by the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Randy Johnson, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Kevin Durant, Rashard Lewis, Joey Galloway, and Steve Hutchinson. These are the superstars that began their pro career in Seattle, then for various reasons left in their prime, leaving fans wondering what if? The other list is short, most notably Edgar Martinez, Ichiro, Shaun Alexander, Walter Jones, and old timers Steve Largent and Fred Brown. Adding Felix to this list would mean so much more than a couple prospects that may or may not become MLB players.

Losing Felix via trade or free agency would not only hurt on the baseball diamond, but the morale blow and symbolic loss would be felt for years. To this day I wonder what Kemp and Payton could have been had they stayed in Seattle another 5 years. Or those mid-90’s Mariners that had the best core in baseball, could Jr., A-Rod and Randy have brought Seattle a World Series? I tend to think yes. The Mariners especially can ill afford to lose a superstar, given its history of doing so, and also its current public relations state. Felix has made clear time and time again his desire to be a Mariner, and he backed his words by signing a 5 year extension. The Mariners owe the fans to put up a fight to keep Felix in Seattle past 2014, rather than trading him. He is too unique, too special, too important to this city, both in the short and long term. He is the king, our ace, our face.

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by | July 2, 2012 · 12:10 am

Danny Hultzen and Other Tacoma Notes

It was a fairly busy sports weekend in the Seattle area, and I spent the weekend going to a few baseball games.  Sandwiched in between the Rainiers on Thursday and Mariners on Saturday was one of the biggest recruiting days in Husky football history.  I’ll hopefully get to that tomorrow.  The Mariners don’t have much to talk about aside from Munenori Kawasaki being extremely awesome, so I’ll start off recapping the weekend by writing about how my weekend started.

On Thursday, Matthew, our cousin (and loyal blog reader) Tyler, and I made the trek down to Tacoma to see the Danny Hultzen-Jamie Moyer match-up.  A trek it was.  It took us two and a half hours to get from Bellevue to Tacoma but that’s beside the point, this isn’t a traffic blog, it’s a sports blog!  Although, a traffic blog may be more entertaining than talking about the Mariners sometimes.  Anyway, we missed one of Hultzen’s innings because of traffic but caught his other 3 innings.

The future Mariner has a hunched over windup, kind of like his shoulders are slouching.  Other than that, the rest of his windup was pretty standard.  His right foot starts a little bit in front of the rubber and steps to the side, more than it steps backwards.  There’s a fairly normal leg kick and his arm comes a little higher than the 3/4’s slot.  His follow-through is fairly normal (more on that later) as well.  Here’s some video of the start.  His fastball sat at about 93 and he flashed 96 twice up on the radar gun (I don’t think the radar gun was hot or anything because Moyer was about where he has been all season and even below that at times).  We didn’t see much of his change-up because he didn’t seem to have a lot of control of it.  Maybe it was just an off night for that pitch, as it’s usually a plus pitch for him.  His slider had tons of movement, although he didn’t have plus control on that either.  It was a great strikeout pitch though.

Hultzen walked 4 guys in 4 innings during the game.  All of the walks came when Hultzen was pitching out of the stretch.  Hultzen often switched his between a slide-step and a high leg kick when runners were on first base.  Based on the video, I think he’s a little better when he’s not using the slide-step.  Maybe he doesn’t have a good pick-off move (he didn’t use one, that I recall) but a good amount of lefties get away with not using a slide-step.  His control was definitely a problem out of the stretch.

Another problem Hultzen seemed to have was finishing his pitches.  Matthew picked up on it right away, and after watching the video I have to agree with him.  In the second inning, when Danny got into some trouble, he seemed to really struggle with this.  By not finishing his pitch, I mean to say that his leg and arm didn’t follow through as much as they usually do.  To use the famous phrase, he was trying to “aim it and not throw it.”  It was especially apparent on off-speed pitches (this gave the pitch away to some hitters) but there were a few fastballs where it seemed to be a problem as well.

All in all, Danny was good.  There weren’t many hard hit balls, the issue was strictly control.  He has great stuff and will succeed.  He does have to work through this control issue.  I don’t know if the mechanical things I mentioned are a constant problem or just an abnormality.  If anyone goes to see him in Tacoma again (he’ll pitch again on Tuesday) look for what I mentioned and let us know.

I’ve got a few more thoughts on Nick Franklin, Triunfel, and Peguero after the jump.  Continue reading →

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by | June 26, 2012 · 7:14 pm

Justin Smoak: He’s (not) So Hot Right Now

This morning, Dave Cameron over at USS Mariner wrote a post that essentially said it’s time to give up on Justin Smoak.  His argument is well researched and laid out, as always.  I don’t always agree with Cameron, but this one’s kind of hard to argue with.

You can read the post and form your own opinions.  I’m in favor of giving Smoak more time, at least into the first half next year, but my hope is wearing thin as well.  The Mariners should definitely be thinking about replacements, as I’m sure they are.  Getting Mike Carp healthy and hitting would be a good start.

Cameron’s post got me thinking about something else, though.  Smoak has been very good at times.  Not very many times, but the beginning and end of 2011, May this year, he was the type of first baseman with which a team can fight for the pennant.  Obviously, the problem is that those hot streaks are vastly outnumbered by his cold streaks, and when Smoak is cold, he’s ice cold.

The  question that came to mind is, why do players even have hot and cold streaks.  More importantly, when do we look at hot streaks as a sign of what should be expected as a player matures?  Streaks can be the product of circumstances, or maybe of being “in the zone”, as they say.  I don’t think there are any generalizations to be made on hot streaks.  They’re just one of those weird sports things.  Sometimes a player is feeling it, sometimes they’re not.

A streak can be a streak, or it can be a glimpse of the future.  What’s difficult with a younger streaky player like Smoak is when you have to decide whether the hot streaks or cold streaks are closer to his true ability.  He clearly has the talent or physical tools to be an all-star level bat.  His hot streaks have proven that.  The question is whether he needs that extra bit of oomph, that whatever it is that players feel when they get hot, to reach that level.

As Mariner fans, we have to hope not.  We need Smoak to grow and improve to the point where that upper level he occasionally reaches becomes closer to his normal level of production.  He needs consistency, and some good luck.  He also seems to need to get the voices out of his head.  Confidence doesn’t appear to be one of Smoak’s attributes.

Whatever the issues, the Mariners are running out of time to see what Smoak can become.  His hot streaks need to become his normal level of production.  As much as I want it to happen, I’m not holding my breath.

-Matthew

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by | June 25, 2012 · 7:41 pm

The Mariners of the Future: Second Base

We seem to be alternating between barren and loaded positions with this series.  That should continue until the outfield.  Next up is the loaded second base.

The Rundown

Dustin Ackley is still a pivotal piece in the Mariners’ rebuilding effort.  He’s not performing well this year, but that’s not uncommon for someone in his position.  He has some clear mechanical issues at the moment and seems to be struggling to make adjustments.  I’d expect these to be ironed out at some point soon.  It’s still unclear where Ackley will end up offensively.  His recent struggles have tempered the Chase Utley comparisons, but that level isn’t impossible.  He should still be at least an above-average, allstar level bat most years.  He needs to be that, for everyone’s sake.  What isn’t a huge issue is his defense.  After meeting a lot of skepticism while learning the position, he’s become a solid if unspectacular defender.  To my eyes, he’s improving and has the skills to be at least slightly above-average. Continue reading →

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